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Harry Reid is a "leftist"?
Noooooooooo Hugo! Harry Reid is your friend....
Venezuela's Chavez takes aim at Reid
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of
President Bush, focused Friday on a new American target: newly named U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record).
Chavez took issue with comments Reid made just hours earlier to the National Press Club in Washington, citing the Venezuelan leader as among the threats facing the United States in 2007 because "Chavez and (Cuba's Fidel) Castro want to put their leftist marks on young democracies."
Chavez, in Brazil attending a summit of 10 South American leaders, said the Nevada Democrat got it wrong.
Instead, Chavez declared he wants to "put the leftist stamp on the people, those who the imperialist gringos don't want or can't understand because of fear or ignorance."
"I think this leftist stamp in Latin America is going to spread throughout the world because the only the left can provide the transformation we need," Chavez said.
South America has seen a sharp drift to the left in recent years with the election of new leftist leaders.
Reid in December toured South America with five other U.S. senators but did not go to Venezuela.
Sen. Kent Conrad (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., said the bipartisan group led by Reid was trying to counter Chavez's attempts to form an "anti-American bloc" in the region.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/...il_chavez_reid
Harry Reid is a "leftist"?
Sure doesn't sound like Reid is his friend.
January 21, 2007
Chavez to U.S.: 'Go to , Gringos!'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:46 p.m. ET
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez told U.S. officials to ''Go to , gringos!'' and called Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ''missy'' on his weekly radio and TV show Sunday, lashing out at Washington for what he called unacceptable meddling in Venezuelan affairs.
The tirade came after Washington raised concerns about a measure to grant the fiery leftist leader broad lawmaking powers. The National Assembly, which is controlled by the president's political allies, is expected to give final approval this week to what it calls the ''enabling law,'' which would give Chavez the authority to pass a series of laws by decree during an 18-month period.
On Friday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Chavez's plans under the law ''have caused us some concern.''
Chavez rejected Casey's statement in his broadcast, saying: ''Go to , gringos! Go home!''
He also attacked U.S. actions in the Middle East.
''What does the empire want? Condoleezza said it. How are you? You've forgotten me, missy ... Condoleezza said it clearly, it's about creating a new geopolitical'' map in the Middle East, Chavez said.
In typical style, Chavez spoke for hours Sunday during his first appearance on the weekly program in five months. He sent his best wishes to the ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, his close ally and friend who has been sidelined since intestinal surgery last summer.
Other comments ranged from watching dancing Brazilian girls wearing string bikinis at a recent presidential summit to Washington's alleged role in the hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
''They took out Saddam Hussein and they hung him, for good or worse. It's not up to me to judge any government, but that gentleman was the president of that country.''
Holding up a newspaper with a photograph of him gazing at a string bikini-clad Brazilian dancing samba during a summit last week in Rio de Janeiro, Chavez laughed and said: ''I didn't know where to look ... It was truly a thing of beauty.''
Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, has said he will enact sweeping reforms to remake Venezuela into a socialist state. Among his plans are nationalizing the main telecommunications company and the electricity and natural gas sectors.
The president's opponents accuse him of using his political strength to expand his powers.
Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense since Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that he claimed the U.S. played a role in. The Bush administration has repeatedly denied being involved, although it recognized an interim government established by coup leaders.
Since then, Chavez has consistently accused the U.S. of conspiring to oust him and often asserts the CIA is working to destabilize his government. U.S. officials have denied trying to overthrow Chavez, but they have labeled him a threat to democracy.
Criticizing excessive consumption and self-indulgence, Chavez also announced plans in his broadcast to raise domestic gasoline prices and approve a new tax on luxury goods such as private yachts, second homes and extravagant automobiles.
He did not give details on the gas price hike, which he said would not affect bus drivers who provide public transportation, or the luxury tax. He said revenue from the new measures would be put toward government social programs.
Venezuela is one of the world's leading petroleum exporters and gasoline now costs as little as 12 cents a gallon due to government subsidies.
Chavez is one ignorant mother er
Weren't there a bunch of people in here singing his praises not too long ago?
I can think of just one.
Must have had a lot to say because, I remember a lot of posts that gave Chavez the love.
That's a fair description of Dan.
Ah, okay.
Yes, I'm a big Chavez fan...
...and I'm not a big fan of Harry Reid either.
Idiots.
Chavez haters are terris' lovers...
LinkVenezuela, Chavez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis’ reserves. However, most of Venezuela’s mega-horde of crude is in the form of “extra-heavy” oil — liquid asphalt — which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil’s price — and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago — would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chavez’s offer: Drop the price to $50 — and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela’s investment in heavy oil.
But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn’t like that one bit. It comes down to “petro-dollars.” When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn’t because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.
The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush’s $2 trillion rise in the nation’s debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.
Chavez would put an end to all that. He’ll sell us oil relatively cheaply — but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations.
The horror, the horror...
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